Archive: May 24, 2009 - May 30, 2009

Mark your calendars: President and Mrs. Obama will be hosting the National Book Festival on the National Mall Sept. 26, but you already knew that. ... Mark Sarvas compiles a list of the lamest, most pathetic literary losers. ... If you've read Flannery O'Connor's fevered "Wise Blood," you won't be...

The dream came true yesterday for James King. His first book, "Bill Warrington's Last Chance," has won the annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. The prize is what every aspiring writer wants most: a publishing contract and a $25,000 advance. Viking plans to release his novel next summer. I caught up...

Chris Anderson has been generating buzz lately with a new sermon about the future of business: FREE! His book on the subject comes out in early July for $26.99. [Insert own joke here.] But a small publisher in Massachusetts is already taking Anderson's advice to heart. Concord Free Press just...

Ruth Padel resigns from her brand-new poetry position at Oxford University after it appeared that she was more involved in the "dirty tricks dossier" aimed at Derek Walcott, the front runner for the position, than she originally let on. ... Robert Ludlum, the author, is dead, but Robert Ludlum, the...